Treating Trauma

‘Trauma is a fact of life. It does not however have to be a life sentence.’

Peter LevineI am able to treat a range of mental health and emotional problems using the latest evidenced based treatments and interventions. By recognising the relationship between the body and the mind and understanding that traumatic symptoms are physiological as well as psychological I am able to treat sufferers effectively.

Post Traumatic Stress (PTS) has debilitating symptoms preceded by a life threatening or perceived life threatening event. It used to be called 'shell shock' or 'battle fatigue' until it became better understood and it was realised that the disorder was not unique to soldiers and could develop in anyone who had survived extremely stressful events.

Any experience that triggers a strong fear response can lead to PTS including experiences of violence, rape, verbal abuse, bullying, sexual abuse, traffic accidents, witnessing sudden or violent death, surviving natural disasters or near death experiences, surgery, difficult labour and child birth.

Our bodies are designed to produce huge amounts of energy when faced with life threatening situations. This energy is generated to fuel us taking immediate action to save our lives, that is, to enable us to fight, flee, freeze or feign death in order to negotiate our way out of danger. Often some of this powerful energy becomes frozen within the body and trapped in the nervous system causing many symptoms such as depression, anxiety, psychosomatic and anti social behaviours. And because this energy was frozen whilst we were fearful and under threat our brains come to associate instinctive increased energy production, within the body, with being under threat and feeling terrified and this sets up a cycle of debilitating torment only too familiar for many trauma survivors.

People suffering with PTS live in a state of chronic inner chaos, often experiencing flash backs, anxiety, severe sleep problems, altered relationships, feeling numb or out of control as well as isolated with a prevailing sense of being cut off or different. Their traumatic memories differ from bad memories. Bad memories fade over time, they can be recalled at will, talked or thought about and although these memories remain unpleasant they are understood to be in the past. Traumatic memories however, do not fade in the same way and sufferers can be hijacked by overwhelming emotions with aspects of the original trauma being re experienced over and over again. Not surprisingly, many people experiencing such confusing and overwhelming emotions often state they 'feel they are going mad.'

The good news is that with support from a good therapist that understands trauma and knows how to treat it, recovery is achievable.

Therapies

Sensorimotor Psychotherapy directly addresses the effects of trauma on the nervous system, body and mind. It combines traditional cognitive talking therapies with more scientific somatic approaches in order to reduce and resolve trauma based symptoms and restore natural and adaptive ways of managing stress.

The techniques used enable the client’s body, mind and nervous system to realise and ‘feel’ that the traumatic event is over and that the danger has passed. Once this has been achieved the trauma can be processed and become part of a person’s history instead of them reliving parts of the experience as if it was happening over and over again.

EMDR is a therapeutic technique developed to enable traumatic memories to be processed in order to reduce the lingering influence of images, smells, sounds and feelings associated with the traumatic experience.

The 'Rewind' technique is a gentle, safe and non threatening psychological method for detraumatising people and is also used for removing phobias.

A phobia is an uncontrolled, persistent, irrational fear that is accompanied by a compelling desire to avoid the object, sensation or situation that provokes the fear.

Dissociation My interventions recognise the important role and innate wisdom of dissociation in enabling us to survive overwhelming trauma. Woody Allen describes the role played by dissociation in his quote:

'I'm not afraid of dying. I just don't want to be there when it happens.'

Dissociation enables us to alter our consciousness in a way that allows us to disconnect and separate from the full impact of the traumatic experience. It protects us from feeling the terror and fear of dying and ultimately from the pain of death. At one end of the spectrum dissociation manifests as a kind of spaciness and disconnection and at the other end of the spectrum, following extreme and enduring trauma, it can develop into Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). In therapy, we work towards increasing awareness of dissociation in order to achieve integration and move towards a sense of feeling whole.